Friday, June 09, 2017

Violent Buddhism

I am reading a couple of novels by John Burdett which feature a Buddhist Thai detective. Here are some interesting excerpts:

``Whatever little mind picture you've got of me by now, kid, you better dump them. I don't have an ego. Those Chinese burned every little bit of it out of me ... there was no way I was going to spend the next sixty years dragging a bleeding, damaged, heartbroken, resentful, miserable stump of ego around. ...'' ---p. 347, The Godfather of Kathmandu, John Burdett

``You thought you would play the martyr, get yourself a permanent seat in nirvana in return for your sacrifice, your undeniable stinking goodness? What are you, some kind of Sunday Christian? Didn't I already make it clear that good isn't good enough? ... Good is even harder to kick than evil. They are a duality, you know that, you don't get one without the other. ... And anyway, you have no right to deprive me of my karma. It's all me driving this. This is my moment, not yours, so who the fuck are you to screw it all up because you can't live with yourself? If you can't live with yourself, dump your self.'' ---p. 346, The Godfather of Kathmandu, John Burdett

``[Clive of India] was the first to make the connection between arms and narcotics. This little thug from Shropshire, who would certainly have been hanged if he'd stayed in England, saw the way to finance a whole private army, and the model proved so effective they repeated it all over the world: narcotics, slaves, and weapons. It's the great tripod upon which our global civilization continues to be based, even if they have changed the labels and the slaves get health insurance. The plain fact is, the sociopathic nature of the modern corporation started then and there with Clive. ... '' ---p. 345, The Godfather of Kathmandu, John Burdett